EPROSY homes supported entirely or in part by some such organisation as the American Mission to Lepers are confronted with the serious problem of staffing their institutions with an adequate and well trained force. This is due mainly to the fact that funds are limited, and that the number of such institutions requiring financial help are many, and are constantly increasing. As is the case with the Chiengmai Leprosy Home, the superinten dents of many such institutions are recruited from the members of the Mission operating in that particular country. Other pressing mission duties make large demands on the time of the superintendent so that many asylums are seriously handicapped by inadequate supervision. We had to meet such a problem at Chiengmai from the very first and found the solution in local self-government. Local self-govern ment as adopted by this institution is patterned after the Siamese form of village government. It has been in operation for more than twenty years, and has given, and still gives satisfaction. Placing the responsibility on the inmates of the asylum has opened our eyes to the fact that many of them are thoroughly dependable and need only guidance and patience to make them valuable workers. Always before them is the fact that the institution is theirs. As a result, they take pride in their work and are constantly on guard to inspire the same feeling in others who become careless.
INTRODucTION F ollowing the encouraging results of experimental work on infecting monkeys with leprosy following a diet of colocasia, and the use of diatherrny in ' stimulating adrenal glands in lepers, reports of which are being published at the sarne time as this article, Oberdoerffer and Collier decided to try the use of diphtheria anti toxin. The reasons are as follows: Oberdoerfter has advanced the theory that adrenal insufficiency predisposes an individual to leprosy. This may be caused by the sapotoxins in certain food plants, as well as result from other causes of glandular hypo-func tion. We thought, that there might be something more than an analogy between the well proven attempt of the body to form anti bodies against a toxin such as diphtheria toxin, which essentially darnages the adrenals, and the lack of such an attempt in leprosy. "'Reprinted with the permission of the a u thors from the "Thai Science " Bulletin lI. 2, April, 1940. The plates appearin g in th e original paper are absent, but two photographs sent by the authors show the efIects of toxoid treatment on a patient• not specially mentioned in the texto
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